This column was written on Sunday 19 June. The outcome of the EU referendum was still a matter of speculation.

What was clear even before the horrific death of Jo Cox (and we may also know more by now about the political context of that act of violence) there was widespread anxiety about the way the campaign was conducted. It revealed and/or was a cause of a worrying coarsening of political discourse. In every sense of the word it was uncivil.